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Is Nairaland.com gradually dying?

Before Now Nairaland was the most popular and trafficked site in Nigeria owned by a Nigerian (Seun) according to alexa. However over the past few months things have changed, Nairaland has lost its grip and is now trailing Vanguard News website. Though alexa ranking is largely incorrect, any frequent Nairaland user would know the site is no longer as before in terms of volume of interaction and comments.

What is the cause?
I think the rise of Facebook, 2go, Google Plus and other Social Networks has taken its toll on Nairaland. Nairaland has also refused to innovate. Seun may have strong reasons for refusing to add new features to Nairaland but when you don’t innovate, you stand a risk of going into extinct. Nothing is as constant as change, people want to use things that are easy, interactive, personalized and engaging hence the shift from Forums to Social Networks.

Despite the drop, Nairaland is still the most popular site when it comes to interaction, breaking news etc among Nigerian.

Many Nigerians still like Nairaland including me, Seun should find a way and develop a unique social Network based on pattern of interaction between the current users and run it parallel with current Nairaland site with option for users to opt into the new service. The new service should be structured in a way that current Nairaland features will still be prominent but increasing interactivity and socialization.

I believe that the success and relevance of Nairaland till date lies majorly in its simplicity. Complicate things a bit more and people could drop it like hot coal. That’s not to say that innovation to the site wouldn’t be welcome.

This is absolute true and no doubt that Seun has worked hard. But what i keep asking myself is this, there no change since the site started in 2005? It’s still with the same interface the site came with – Which i believe to be free that time. Check this newly created forum website (http://nigeriamessageboard.com/forums/). You will see that the new website is different from other Nigeria forum websites more closely match your request, interests and the official colors of Nigeria, a social media features that is significantly enhanced for real time online interaction with others that care about your interests.

This seun’s issue that is a concern to all.well to add to that, lets state from positive comment to negative comment.
seun is a very rich guy,he had a fantastic breakthrough through the internet.
having him an john chow as my internet mentors.
what amaze me most is the amount of traffic google sends to him,every time i refreshes his page ,i get to see that the latest member has changed,his traffic is incomparable.
NOW Negative comment.
seun,forum is as old as at when smf began,and i think he should upgrade maybe he thought we dont have good hacker in nigeria,if he is not carefull one day they will hit his site. i actually got fedup of the same pattern of thing all the time.
he could even become a billionaire if he adds other method of making money to his forum, apart from google adsense.
i see him now as some one that has just relaxed because he is comfortable with the amount of money he is earning.he should check out facebook,despite all the money they are still finding other mean to make money with facebook.
one more thing,nairaland annoyed me ,anytime i post links they ban me from posting and my links to my blogs removed,thereby not making my own money,this went on for yrs,at a time i said to myself i am a programmer like him,and i felt challaged,and decided to build mine http://www.9jagist.com with the latest smf softwares.seun thanks for the inspiration you gave me,but just know i will beat you in less than a year.
WORD OF ADVICE: look into every disappointment carefully,and see that a blessing awaits you.

Nigeria launched .com.ng and Google already switched making everyone on .com international this has impact on Nairaland.com.

Not on Nairaland only and many more sites on .com over time you will understand what is going on.

Niaraland idea haven been shared by many of those new websites with some investing heavily on adds like dealfish.com, tradestable.com even though this new sites makes no sense in Nigerian context but they are enough distraction to Nairaland.

You ask seun do you want crowd or money? am sure he will
say money nairaland has no cash register, it only have a free will offering and how many people actually clicks that adsence by google in 1 month and 1yr.

Nairaland’s peculiar situation (a forum being the number one website in a country) wasn’t guaranteed to last forever. News sites like Vanguard tend to be more popular than forums. Remember when Punch overtook us?

It’s true that we’ve not invested much in new features due to certain constraints, but I’ve tried to focus on the most important things. I believe that’s why we’ve lasted this long. New features could bring new life to Nairaland, but they could also speed up our demise. Google “digg v4”.

“Despite the drop, Nairaland is still the most popular site when it comes to interaction, breaking news etc among Nigerian.” i disagree, its faster to get breaking news on twitter, and am sure there are more Nigerians on twitter than you would find on Nairaland (don’t quote me).

its a simple principle really, ‘Adapt or die’, Nairaland has failed to adapt so ……

Niaraland is mainly used by yorobah people to bash and trash talk other tribes in Nigeria. To these bloated fools the best party in Nigeria is ACN and the best and only tribe is yorobah, everyone else is stupid. I only joined nairaland after reading dozens of stupid threads/posts against other trobes in Nigeria especially people from SE and SS.

This Seun guy is lame, post any rubbish post against his yorobah race and he will delete you from this website, yet he allows his dirty yorobah people to be talking rubbish against other tribes.

Tribalism on nairland is just too much, if things doesnt change then suen and his forum will regret it.

Read someone sometime ago refer to Nairaland as a forum of clicks. Not sure about the Yoruba thing but sometimes several persons I know think Seun the founder was just one lucky chap who came in at the right time. He doesn’t seem to have further ideas or ambitions on building on the relative success of Nairaland.

I believe Seun might be afraid if he does a thing on the website skeleton, he might confuse thing up.
Maybe he should just consider going for advanced training on developing websites.
Needs innovation really.

I beg to disagree with you on your last point. I may not know how much Nairaland makes but I believe Seun has the capacity to hire a couple of smart programmers. He doesn’t need to do any programming himself